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We notice boys wearing kiltsuits with a variety of undergarments. The choices here are widely varied. Here we are not entirely talking about underwear. We can tell little from the photographic record about underwear, but we have some information about undergarments. We are speaking of a variety of garments. Our information here is entirely based on what can be observe in the photographic record. We have not yet found any written information in period fashion or women's magazines. And these garmets do not appear to have been commonly mentioned in the catalogs of the day. Often we can not tell because the undergarments did not show below the hem of the kilt skirt. But in many portraits we can tell what the boy was wearing. The garments we have observe include petticoats, pantalettes/drawers, and trousers (knee pants and bloomer knickers). Some of the trousers were suit trousers, matching the material of the jacket and kilt. We are not sure if a boy wearing trousers with kilts suits can be considered breeched. Nor or we sure what the purpose was. Was the boy considerd too old to be wearing skirted garments. If so, why not dress him in a knee pants suit? The choice of these garments varied from family to family. A factor here was age, but as far as we can tell, there was no well established conventions.
The underwear included petticoats and pantalettes, also called drawers. These of course at the time were the garments girls and women wore with dresses and skirts. It is not always posible to distingish which of the two the boys are wearing, but often it is possible. This probably to somev extent is a matterb of age. And the older boys wearing kiltsuits, wre pants rhaerv than petticoats and oantalettes, but for the mostb part the chocev seems to be an arbitary one made randomly by mothers. it is not really possible to establish which was the more common because so many kilt suit portaits that nothing is vissible below yjev hemm of theb kilt suit skirt.
The pants/trosers inclded both knee pants and bloomer knickers. The knee pabnts were much more common than the knee pants. Some of the trousers were suit trousers, matching the material of the jacket and kilt. We are not sure if a boy wearing trousers with kilts suits would have been seen as being breeched. Nor or we sure what the purpose was. Was the boy considerd too old to be wearing skirted garments. If so, why not dress him in a knee pants suit? We have never notice this being addressed in the literature. Pants or trousers were not a normal part of a Highlanf kilt, but we do often see this with kilt suits. This was not the case of other skirted garments like dresses and skirts, but pants were more commonly worn with tunic suits. We are just beginning to work out how common this was or if there were any chronolohocal patterns. Kilts suits were worn for several decades (1860s-early-1900s) and we are just beginnuing to develop chronological data to determine changes during this period. We are also unsure about the age conventions associated with wedaring knee pants with kilt suits. We do not have a lot of examples and do not know if some of the pants involved, knee pants as best we can tell, were not made to match the suit. This is why we do not consider them to be a standard suit element. The ones which we have found so far did not match. Curuiously, mothers have added petticoats to the oufits with pants. Petticoats were quite common with kilt suits, although it is difficult to know how common. There is no way of knowing that boys who do not seem to be wearing petticoats were simply wearing petticoats too short to show. Petticoats do not seem strange to wear with kilt suits, after all kilts were a skirted garmnt. Although petticoats were not worn with proper Highland kilts. It does, however, seem rather starange to wear petticoats with pants. We do not notice any other instance of this. Presumnably the mothers involved just saw petticoats as the normal accompanyment to skirted garments. Unlike the petticoats, we do hav a fairly good idea about the prevalence of knee pants with kilt suits. Knee pants were long enoughh taht we can see them with most likt suits. Somne boys wore inusually long kilt-skirts with kilt suit, but most wore kilts-skirts short ebnoygh to see if knee pants were being worn with them.
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